


let me know

by thesiege



Series: —or, trilogy [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, I guess???, I'm Sorry, It gets a little dark, OOC, it's sad, love square, post-reveal, pretty sure this counts as angst right, totally ooc like completely like so ooc you might hate it so fair warning, vague mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 00:19:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8079511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesiege/pseuds/thesiege
Summary: —or, the end of an illusion and two broken hearts. [sequel to 'hook, line, and sinker']





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry everyone, I definitely should've put this here earlier: EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING IS OOC! Also, remember this is all from Mari's POV and she is very much biased!
> 
> This is definitely not how I actually view them canonically; I played on certain aspects of their personalities and exaggerated them because I wanted to explore different characterizations (and I do realize that they will not always be popular with readers, but thank you all so much for sharing your thoughts, they are wonderful to hear, and for being nice about what you disagreed with!).
> 
> And I mayyyyyyyy still continue this one day. MAYBE. If the muse strikes me again. ;)

And when she thinks back on it, she realizes how obvious it was. Hindsight is 20/20, and love doesn’t happen at the drop of a mask. She knows this — _ knew _ this—once?—or not—because  _ look _ , she sneers at herself,  _ look at what you’ve done. Look at how you wanted so desperately that you ignored the truth. _

( _ Look at him, and look at you, and look at the distance between you. Distance is a function of how alone he is with you and how much Ladybug you are showing, and guess what? It’s inversely proportional. _

She laughs at herself bitterly.  _ Listen to me. I don’t even like math. But he does. And that’s really all that matters, isn’t it? _ )

Because Adrien doesn’t talk to her when she’s Marinette, not when other people are around. He looks at her and smiles, but it’s his model smile, his polite mask, the one she hates because it’s the representation of an emotional wall so thick and so high that she could never get past it without her powers. It’s a wall that breaks down as soon as she channels her Ladybug persona, the side of her that is beautiful and heroic and not strictly real.

Adrien loves Ladybug: fact. Adrien loves Marinette: ooh, nice try, but no, not even close.

Adrien loves a phantom, a dream, a wish, whose medium happens to be plain ole Marinette: ding ding ding! We have a winner.

Honestly, she hates herself most in times like this—that is, times when she is alone with her thoughts and she can’t avoid the truth anymore, and she turns into this dark, insecure, self-loathing idiot (who is almost less of a ghost than Ladybug). She turns into the opposite of everything she’s ever stood for and—heaven help her—she almost hates Adrien, just a little, for having the ability to make her into such a creature  _ and using it _ . It’s a cruel, jealous, selfish thought, that he’s completely at fault, but sometimes it makes her feel better.

(It’s what makes her feel better when she thinks that in reality, Adrien probably loves Tikki more than he does her.

In her darkest, darkest moments, she even resents Tikki a little for choosing her, for subjecting her to this unfair comparison between her and Ladybug. But then she hates herself that much more and has to pinch herself to bleeding as punishment in order to feel like less of a monster.)

And it’s a long, long time—it’s no simple journey to the lowest of lows, after all, and she’s almost amazed at how close she gets—before she finally realizes that if she doesn’t stop this, doesn’t stop killing herself, she will break, and break irreversibly. She will be a pitiful, useless, broken shell of a girl and—well, she doesn’t love him  _ that _ much, she supposes as she claws at her chest, wondering if the pain of knowing she’s not good enough will ever go away. (She has never believed heartbreak can be a physical pain until now.)

She wonders if all the tears she’s cried in the past few months would be enough to fill a bucket. She’s cried a lot, but a bucket is pretty ambitious, isn’t it? An entire bucket. She could wash something clean with all that water, like maybe her brain of memories or her heart of love, or pain, or want—or maybe her body of her heart because surely that’s easier than looking at this boy she loves so much, this boy she fell in love with twice and really cannot love anymore, and seeing barely half of her reflected in his eyes.

Surely.

And so: “Adrien?”

“Yes, my lady?” comes the immediate reply. (Not “princess,” no, never “princess” anymore because “princess” was always just a pale substitute, a practice dummy, for “my lady.” And “Marinette”—well, she’ll probably be in hell before that name ever leaves his lips again.)

“Will you kiss me?”  _ One last time _ , she adds silently as she refuses to fake a Ladybug smirk and instead smiles a Marinette smile instead, hoping to be recognized just this once,  _ please, just once _ .

He grins his Chat Noir grin while looking at her with his bright Adrien eyes and Marinette feels the pieces of her broken heart shivering with just how much she loves him. He leans in, eyes closed, and kisses her softly, carefully, but she’s so numb with the knowledge of what she’s about to do that she can hardly feel him.

“Will you tell me you love me?” she begs, hoping against all hope he will call something her different this time, see her for who she is in these last seconds before she acts, but alas—

“I love you, my lady, so much,” he breathes warmly against her lips. She almost wails. “What else do you ask of me?”

“Do you trust me?” And she knows the answer to this question, knows he is sincere, knows that trust is the one thing that has never been an issue between them, not really.

A chuckle, and then he echoes his words from months ago, the beginning of the end, when she surrendered her heart to him so stupidly and forgot all her reasons for keeping her secret: “You know I do.”

She closes her eyes and begins to cry quietly, knowing what’s to come. The inevitability of it all hits her in full force now and her knees almost buckle to the ground under the weight of it. Her shoulders shake and her eyes sting and her chest aches and her body is cold and she can almost physically feel his confusion ( _ but don’t worry, I’m just building up to it, you’ll understand soon enough _ ).

She calls Tikki and dons her spotted suit before him for the last time. She takes a deep breath and looks him straight in the eyes and there’s a vague comprehension dawning there (“the end is near”).

Marinette speaks: “Will you leave and never look at me, speak to me, or think of me again?”

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, I'm sorry.
> 
> I just. I had to do it? I didn't feel like their relationship was quite real, you know? Like I built it up and everything but in the end, Mari still thought of Adrien as basically perfect and he thought of her as Ladybug and, I mean. Idol worship does not a relationship make.
> 
> The thing is, I feel like both of them are infatuated with more than half a person, but not a whole (canonically, as well as in this series) and that just really bothers me??? Like I wanted Mari to fall for Chat and then realize she was in love with the same boy but she kinda still sees him as amazing Adrien, with a little Chat on the side; and Adrien, well, he's another story altogether.
> 
> The problem I have with a lot of reveal stories is that they go like this: they find out about each other's true identities and then, BAM, it's love. OR they tell each other and then, BAM, it's love. And IDK I just feel like if they really loved each other, they could figure it out on their own? Also they would fall in love with both sides? Like, they would notice the other sides BEFORE knowing the truth. I feel like it's easy for things to go like: "Oh wow, you're actually Adrien/Ladybug and I'm totally in love with that side of you therefore I am now in love with all of you even though I completely was not attracted to and did not notice you before!"  
> UGH IDK. I JUST I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS AND WHILE I ENJOY FLUFF AND HAPPINESS I FEEL LIKE THERE IS SO MUCH WRONG THAT COULD HAPPEN. I REALLY CAN'T WAIT FOR SEASON 2. HOW ARE THEY GONNA RESOLVE THESE CRUSHES THOUGH I NEED TO KNOW.
> 
> Anyways, PLEASE DON'T HATE ME. :D


End file.
